A Rare Kind Of Detention
by DragonlaKirsche
Summary: HB finds the Labyrinth Book and ends up wishing I'm sure I don't need to say which pupil away to the Goblins! Hilarity will hopefully ensue. Chapters are trés short atm. AN: I wrote the first three chapters of this crossover fic a looooong time ago and I am now posting in order to force myself to complete it! Yay!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Time off.

Miss Constance Hardbroom was looking forward to relaxing, enjoying the fact that Cackle's was empty once more for the summer holidays. Peace. Quiet. Not even any teachers around to dismay and annoy her. Some might question the oddity of remaining at the school all alone for the entire summer, but she had no place else to go and it gave her an opportunity to work on a seminar she would give. The Witches Council had invited her back to lecture next summer. So far she was stuck on a topic, but she was sure one would reveal itself to her before the year was out.

And really was there any better way to relax then curled up in a chair with a book? She pondered as she browsed the shelves of the library. She had read every book in it but that just allowed her greater knowledge of which book she wanted to read. Her eyebrows knotted as she thought her way through the library's catalogue but couldn't pick out anything particular. She decided to go down into the storage room underneath the library, perhaps one of the older books they kept down there would satisfy.

Her first thought when she opened the hatch door was to set lines for the DOB Society, 'I must leave a room in a useable condition once I have finished with it.' There were cushions and bits of stringed lights everywhere, even a broken set of speakers which she instantly puffified in disgust. The deputy head-mistress might be in less formal attire; her hair was in a loose ponytail and hung in folds around her face, her black dress had been swapped for loose black trousers and a baggy dark indigo silk shirt, but she had not lost her standards. Flicking her long hair over her shoulder she began clearing up. _Really, Miss Drill should've checked the state of the room before we sent the girls home for the summer! Then they could've been made to tidy it_. She grumbled half-heartedly, straightening a lampshade as she made her way to the bookshelves at the back of the room.

Glancing down the shelves, she spotted a book on the origin myths of magic and her mouth twitched. She had always enjoyed the fantastic ideas people had, non-magic and magic people alike. As she pulled it gently from the shelf, a thin red book fell off as well. Arching an eyebrow she picked it up as well. _The Labyrinth_? She raised both eyebrows at the title. _Perhaps something to do with Minos? _She jack-knifed her body onto one of the sofas and opened the red book. Ignoring the "once upon a time" opening she snorted as the heroine of the story wished away her younger brother to the Goblins. _Perhaps I should try doing that with some of the girls here_. _A new form of detention_. Her mouth twitched again at her humour. _Hmph. I wish_…and then she stopped herself. She'd lived long enough in the world of magic to know that even if something appeared to be a fairy tale, you didn't start wishing for things. She recalled her grandmother's maxim. _"Careful what you wish for, my girl_. _Wishing has a very bad habit of coming true on you!_"

The book began to bore her; the heroine was whiny and childish. _Of course life's not fair, you little brat_! Constance tutted and threw the book back towards the bookshelf. It did not slide neatly back into its place as she'd intended, instead falling open on the floor. Constance sighed and got up to place it back on the shelf. _Magic must be slipping_. _It's what comes from relaxing too much_. As she bent down to pick it up her eyes were arrested by the picture page the book had fallen open on. It showed a flamboyant man…_No, not man_. She saw the ears. The inscription at the bottom read "The Goblin King."

"The Goblin King, hnm?" her lips pursed in disapproval. He looked more arrogant than 'Helliboring' and more evil than Miss Cackle's twin sister, but not half as idiotic as either of them. Despite his bird's nest of hair, he looked someone to be reckoned with. Constance shivered slightly and then snapped the book shut and returned it to the shelf, shaking herself as she stalked back to the book of myths on the sofa, putting the book and the Goblin King as far out of her mind as she could.


	2. A New School Year

Chapter Two: A New School Year

The mysterious red book refused to be banished from her mind, even several months later and with the added distraction of the returning girls and the new first years, who seemed even more trying than the year before. _Or perhaps I'm merely getting more irascible_. She'd hmph'd at herself, causing Miss Drill's eyebrow's to raise, wondering what was irritating Miss Hardbroom this time. The picture of the arrogant fae King taunted her from the back of her mind. She even contemplated the notion that it was him who irritated her so much these days before dismissing it with a turn of her head. She would not allow herself to become distracted during lessons or when there was work to be done. _It wouldn't be professional! Mooning over some faerie like a love-sick teenager! _

Her temper reached its peak during one particular potions lesson with the second years. A certain Mildred Hubble had once again attracted disaster and her Restoration Potion was bubbling all over her desk.

"Silly girl! You added too much fennel!" She stalked over to the desk and gave her a cloth.

"I'm sorry Miss Hardbroom, I must've read the…" Mildred piped up.

"500 lines 'I must read every instruction properly before carrying them out.'" Miss Hardbroom over-rode her apology, she didn't need the irritation. "The rest of you, store your potions in the vials and next lesson after they have matured the required 24 hours, we shall test them on some of the paintings around the school! Dismissed!" She opened the cupboard door and watched the girls bustle around, clearing up and putting their potion away. There was very little chatter; it was a Hardbroom lesson after all. Even after they ended, talking was usually pounced on and landed you in detention.

Mildred slumped her way out. She seemed to find herself in detention after every Potions lesson.

"Don't worry Millie! It's only five hundred lines. Won't take you long." Maud patted her on the shoulder.

"It's just every lesson! I do try, it just never works."

"It does sometimes. And sometimes when you get it wrong, it still turns into a useful potion!" Enid pointed out.

"Yeah! Like that potion you got wrong that shrunk Agatha and her gang." Maud smiled encouragingly.

"Thanks." Millie grinned, her spirits lifted and she tripped her way off to chanting with a light enough heart for a girl who had 500 lines that evening.

It was Constance's turn to take detention that evening. Surprisingly there was only Mildred due for her lines writing. Constance's irritation hadn't eased but it had made the girls wary and she had not seen anything detention worthy. Of course that did not mean that detention worthy behaviour wasn't going on, it just meant she wasn't there to see it. The girls might fancy her omnipotent but she couldn't be everywhere all the time. And she saw it as the other teacher's fault if they let bad behaviour ruin their classes.

She glanced at the clock as Mildred came tripping despondently into the room.

"Mildred Hubble!" Constance said despairingly. "Will you do up your shoelaces!"  
"Yes Miss Hardbroom!" Mildred sighed. She heard that sentence at least five times a day and it did not cause her to squeak any more, merely bend down to tie them up, resigned to the fact that they did not stay that way.

Constance debated more lines about shoelaces, but Mildred must've written over a million lines on the subject and it hadn't made the slightest difference. _Maybe we _do _need a new form of detention_. She pondered, watching Mildred take her seat at last.

"Come get your ink and paper, girl." Constance reminded her as Mildred gazed blankly into space.

"Oh!" She did squeak that time. Usually Miss Hardbroom gave it to her. She stumbled up right, her shoelaces having come undone yet again, tripped on them and went flying into Miss Hardbroom's desk, knocked ink and books flying.

Constance let her head drift into her hands, as Mildred leapt up stammering profuse apologies.  
"Sometimes Mildred Hubble," Constance cut across her apologies once again, her head still buried in her hands. "I wish the Goblins would come and take you away. Right now, being one of those times."

A small poof and a high-pitched grating giggle tore her head up.

Allowing a few choice swearwords to cross her mind that, had any of the girls uttered them, probably would've been punished with detention, she got up.

Her Grandmother's words came back to her and she swore silently some more, as she spotted with a teacher's eyesight, the Goblins running around the room, lifting desk lids, toppling and ink and sending papers flying.

"Stop!" she commanded, and the rustling came to an abrupt halt. She delved a hand under a desk and pulled out a squeaking Goblin. "I suppose you _have_ taken her then. That the story is true, and the wish works."

"Yep! Yep!" he nodded at her vigorously and sniggered whole-heartedly.

"Indeed, Constance. What's said is said."


End file.
